Technology Trends India

Infosys Technologies Ltd (INFY.BO), reported a stronger-than-expected 29 percent rise in quarterly profit but gave a downbeat forecast in dollar terms for the current fiscal year amid slowing outsourcing momentum and price pressure.

India's second-largest software services exporter forecast revenue for the year ending March 2010 would fall 3.1-6.7 percent to between $4.35 billion and $4.52 billion, after rising 11.7 percent last year and after growing by more than 30 percent over the past few years.

Raghav(name changed) was baffled to see some of his colleagues at Infosys disappear from work one fine day over the last week.

This time, the customary ‘last e-mail’ saying good bye to colleagues, were not sent.

At a hastily called meeting with HR managers, according to a recently sacked employee, they were given two options: Resign voluntarily or get terminated. In the event of voluntary resignation, they were asked to cite personal reasons.

A unit of Tech Mahindra Ltd. (532755.BY) was Monday named the highest bidder for a controlling stake in beleaguered Satyam Computer Services Ltd. (500376.BY), in a move that could catapult the niche playerinto the big league of the software services business.

Venturbay Consultants Pvt. Ltd. will pay INR17.56 billion ($351 million) for 302.76 million Satyam shares, or a 31% stake, Satyam said.

Leading handset manufacturer, Sony Ericsson announced the launch of its C510 model which comes under its cyber shot range of models at a competitive price of Rs 12,195 in India. Coinciding with the launch, the company also announced its global Smile Hunter competition targeted at photography enthusiasts across India.

Speaking on the growth in the Cybershot category and the launch of C510, Mr. Sudhin Mathur, General Manager, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications India said, “We have been leaders and innovators in the camera phone segment since the inception of the company. The camera phone category has witnessed increased momentum in India with Sony Ericsson leading the wave. Today’s announcement is yet another initiative from our end to offer a breakthrough proposition to our consumers and inspire them to capture precious and spontaneous moments.”

One more grain of sand dropped on top of a pile of sand will usually do nothing more than make the pile a tiny bit larger. Occasionally, though, it will set off an avalanche that radically reshapes the landscape. Observations such as this form the basis of complexity theory, which holds that small events can have unpredictable, and sometimes disproportionately large, effects -- the relevance of which will become apparent momentarily.

Nearly five years ago Mike Sartain and I had just put the wraps on our x86 software renderer, Pixomatic. We had done everything we could think of to speed it up, and while it had certainly gotten a lot faster, it was still so much slower than hardware that we knew we could never close the gap.

The PICDEM Lab Development Kit from Microchip Technology Inc. is a comprehensive, entry-level development platform for all of Microchip's 8-bit Flash PIC microcontrollers (MCUs) with 20 or fewer pins.

Geared toward educators, students, and those who are new to microcontrollers, the PICDEM Lab Development Kit comes complete with a development board containing five popular 8-bit PIC MCUs; a bag of discrete components; a PICkit 2 Debugger/Programmer; and a CD containing a User's Guide, labs, and application examples. The kit provides everything needed to quickly and easily develop applications using Microchip's 8-bit PIC MCUs.

Norton Anti Virus 2009 offers quick, responsive protection against all types of malicious software including viruses, spyware, adware, worms, and other threats. It secures your PC without slowing it down. Norton Anti Virus updates every 5 to 15 minutes help to ensure that you're secured from the latest threats.

Working quickly and silently in background, Norton Anti Virus requires very few memory and other resources. New Norton Insight relies on extensive online intelligence to target only those processes at risk, resulting in quicker, shorter, fewer scans. New Norton Protection System employs multilayered set of latest security technologies that work in concert to detect and block hacker attacks.

Tebma, Dolphin, Afcons, Bharati, Assam aim to drop anchor on Gujarat shores.

With Indian companies planning to drop anchors on Gujarat’s shores, the state is likely to harbor investments to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore in shipyards. Among the players who have shown interest in developing shipyards in the state include Dolphin Offshore Enterprises (India), Tebma Shipyarads, Assam Company, Afcons Infrastructure, Bharati Shipyard, Jindal Shipyard and Pipavav Shipyard, said government sources close to the development.

A group of investors, led by Vinay Chhajlani, CEO of Webdunia.com India Pvt Ltd, and Jehangir S Pocha, former editor of Businessworld, has bought INX News, the company that runs the English news channel NewsX. Chhajlani and Pocha have formed a company called Indi Media for the purpose. Though the size of the deal is not known, media industry sources peg it at roughly Rs 50 crore.

Confirming the development, Peter Mukerjea, chairman of the INX group, told Business Standard: “We did not have the cash to continue funding the English news channel and were looking for an exit. We have now managed to do that.”

The world’s second-largest software products company Oracle is understood to have begun linking the payment of its 20,000-odd employees in India with the productive hours they spend in the company. This has resulted in salary cuts, ranging between 10 and 50 per cent across the board.

Company sources explain that if an employee is a billable resource for 15 days a month, he will be paid in full for that period while for the rest of the period, he is paid a “nominal” amount. Replying to an email query, a company spokesperson in India said: “Oracle does not comment on speculation or rumours.”